#5 and #48 taken back to the R & D Center AGAIN

NASCAR takes the #48 and the #5 cars back to their R & D Center in Concord N.C. for the third consecutive week for closer inspection. The winning car and the engines of the top two finishing cars always are taken to the R&D Center. But Martin finished seventh last week at Kansas and Johnson was ninth, but both cars again were taken the R&D Center. Both cars were cleared after inspections in Concord. Martin finished fourth Sunday, but NASCAR officials again elected to take the #5 Chevy back to the R&D Center for additional tests.

Kyle Feeling ill

Kyle Busch was sick this past weekend and elected to be replaced after starting the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races. He started both of the races this weekends races to be able to keep the points earned by his cars. After starting the Nationwide race he was replaced by Deny Hamlin who ended up finishing the day by kissing the wall. Sunday Kyle was replaced by start and park driver David Gilliland but not before Kyle had drove his M & M Toyota from the back of the field to about 20th position pitting on lap 61 to make the switch, Gilland who will be driving a fourth Gibbs car for an undetermined amount of races starting this weekend didn’t do to bad Sunday, without running any practice laps Gilliland managed to bring home a top 25 finishing 24th.

RPM Ford Program to start

Richard Petty Motorsports has had a Ford in its possession ready to race since after New Hampshire. Most likely AJ Allmendinger will be driving a Fusion at Lowe’s Motor Speedway next weekend or the week after that. Once the #44 car flips over to Ford, it will remain a Fusion the rest of the season. In addition to Allmendinger, Elliott Sadler is expected to drive a Roush-prepared Ford with a Yates engine at Talladega. Whether or not RPM’s proposed merger with Yates Racing goes through, team owner George Gillett has said his team will run Ford’s next season.

Restricting the Restrictor Plate

NASCAR will reduce the size of the restrictor plate and allow teams an optional change as a way to slow the cars and try to keep them from getting airborne at Talladega. Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby said Friday at Auto Club Speedway that the restrictor plate will be reduced 1/64 of an inch. The new size will be 59/64 of an inch. Darby estimates it will shave 12 horsepower off the engines. Teams also have been given an option on side wickers, something they hadn’t been allowed to use before at Talladega. Darby said that teams “will be able to add the same little side wicker to the end plate (on the rear wing) much like they do at the downforce tracks. If you look at all the cars in the garage right now on that end plate, all the way out on the back edge they’ve got a little half by half piece of aluminum. That’s eight inches long. It helps in yaw or when the cars are turned. It kind of settles the back of the car down a little bit.

Latest on Danica:

Danica’s a hot commodity with team onwers right now. It’s become increasingly more difficult for car owners to find good commited sponsor these days. What Danica lacks in talent is made up for by her marketability. What makes her even more attractive is she already has a relationship with godaddy.com as well as other motorsports sponsors, which in some respects (I hate to say) makes her good for NASCAR because some IRL sponsors may follow her which will be good for the team and teammates because more relationships are built. One thing we talked about last week was Danica’s paycheck they’re were false rumors saying she wanted 1 million per race that turned out to be poppycock, insiders say she’ll make somewhere between $20,000 and $40,000 per race.

Ford’s New Engine

Ford will delay the debut of its new Sprint Cup engine, Doug Hervey, who oversees Ford’s North American racing operations, said Saturday. The engine was scheduled to have debuted next week at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Instead, Ford will debut the restrictor-plate version of the engine at Talladega in three weeks. As for the non-restrictor-plate engine, it likely will debut at Texas or Homestead. I wonder if this will have an effect on RPM’s date to switch to a Ford which was slated for A.J. Almemdinger to run a Ford at Lowes.